Secretariat

Economic Accounts for Forestry

Project

Economic Accounts for German Forestry

Forest industry as part of the entire economy is linked to manifold economic activities in a country. It uses goods for intermediate consumption, invests in fixed capital, contributes to overall supply with wood and non-wood-goods and creates income which is distributed to the economic units bearing the production. Moreover forest enterprises own assets in terms of standing timber, equipment and buildings.

Background and Objective

The Economic Accounts for German Forestry is compiled annually by the Thünen Institute of International Forestry and Forest Economics and provides an overview of the origin of goods and income in the forestry industry as a part of the German economy.

Target Group

Politics, Associations

Approach

The accounting results of the Test Enterprise Network Forestry of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture are the starting point for the calculation of key data of the Economic Accounts for German Forestry. The economic data collected annually from the participating forestry enterprises of state, corporate and private forest greater than 200 ha forest land, as well as other data sources, are extrapolated for the federal territory.

Data and Methods

The most important data sources for the Economic Accounts for German Forestry are the Test Enterprise Network Forestry of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), data for machine stock structure of the Kuratorium für Waldarbeit und Forsttechnik e.V., price data for timber assortments of the Federal Statistical Office and data on the development of energy prices from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi ).

Our Research Questions

How did the production value in the German forestry sector come about in the reporting year and how was it used?

Preliminary Results

The results of the Economic Accounts for German Forestry for 2015 are influenced by a change of the calculation method for the use-side estimation of wood harvest in Germany. In the multi-year medium (2003-2012), the nationwide amount of timber fellings according to the new procedure is 15.3 % higher than the old use-side estimation procedure of the TI-WF.

In 2015, the production value of the forestry sector increased by 9.4 % to 5.5 billion Euros compared to the previous year.

The production forestry goods accounted for 82,5 % and the production of forestry services accounted for 17,5 % of the production value. With 3.3 billion Euros of the value of produced soft wood increased by 16.7 % compared to the previous year. It has a share of 59.9 % of the production value.

With 1.45 billion euros the net entrepreneurial income in 2015 increased by 22.7 % compared to the previous year. The net entrepreneurial income is thus at a record level. However, the forestry sector could only recently generate significant corporate earnings. Until the mid-2000s, the forestry sector was characterized by losses or only marginal corporate earnings.